December 2022 — MHCE Newsletter

32 | MHCE - News www.mhce.us DECEMBER 2022 EDITION
Legal Saga Over Army’s
Denial of Reservists’
Housing Allowances
Takes Another Turn
STUTTGART, Germany —
More than a year after the
Army’s highest review board
ruled that the service illegally
denied a group of reservists
hundreds of thousands of
dollars in housing benefits, the
panel has been ordered to take
up the matter again.
That decision was made Friday
by the Court of Federal Claims
in Washington and comes in
response to the Army’s refusal
to follow an order from its
own Board of Corrections.
Hundreds or even thousands of
reservists were likely affected
over the years, defense
attorneys have said.
The order obligated the service
to repay soldiers who had been
wrongfully denied housing
payments and subjected to
erroneous criminal probes that
killed careers.
“I was investigated four
times in seven years. Missed
(brigadier general) promotion,
name ruined, damaged my
career, my children, my wife,”
said Richard Gulley, one of
the plaintiffs in the case, who
previously served as a colonel
at U.S. Africa Command
headquarters in Stuttgart.
“How many (people’s) lives
were destroyed?”
Gulley is one of now 33
plaintiffs suing the Army,
which in August 2021 was
found to have broken the law
when it denied dual housing
allowances to a contingent
of reservists mobilized for
assignments in Europe.
The dispute centers on a
contention by Army finance
officials that reservists who
mobilized from the U.S. for
assignments abroad aren’t
entitled to a basic housing
allowance for their American
residence and an overseas
housing allowance if the
Army fails to provide on-post
accommodations.
For years, reservists were paid
the dual allowances, since they
still needed to pay rents and
mortgages while deployed.
But in 2016, finance officials
in Wiesbaden changed their
interpretation of the Joint
Travel Regulation.
As a result, reservists were
permitted only one allowance.
The change was applied
retroactively, so Army finance
officials began targeting
those who had received dual
payments.
But the Army review board, in
its initial August 2021 decision,
said the service’s rationale
violated federal regulations
and led to “unjust actions”
against reservists.
The people affected faced
invasive criminal fraud probes,
were denied promotions and
went into debt as the service
sought to recoup hundreds
of thousands of dollars in
allowances that had been paid.
The Army was ordered to repay
seven soldiers involved in the
initial lawsuit no later than
October 2021 while deleting
all negative findings from
files and criminal databases
related to the cases. But the
repayments never came amid
ongoing legal maneuvering by
government attorneys.
With the case now ordered back
to the Army board for a second
time, more reservists who were
treated in a similar manner
can be added as plaintiffs, said
attorney Patrick Hughes of the
Patriots Law Group, which is
handling the lawsuit.
“We are in the process of
getting the word out again
on that,” Hughes said.
“Otherwise, the Army may
get to avoid paying six-plus
years of dual entitlements
like it should have to all these
(reserve component) members
in Europe, if the (Army board)
agrees that was appropriate
based on the judge’s order.”
The ongoing legal wrangling
revolves around the Army’s
new contention that it can’t
pay the reservists despite being
ordered to do so.
Government lawyers are
arguing that the Defense
Finance and Accounting
Service could not pay the
reservists because of other
regulations. They claim
that it may only pay reserve
members with dependents in
the same fashion as active-duty
members, through a family
separation basic allowance for
housing overseas.
That separation allowance
can’t be paid if a reservist’s
family member spends more
than 90 days in the same
area where the reservist has
been mobilized, the Army’s
attorneys argued in an August
court filing.
DFAS determined that plaintiffs
with dependents could be
eligible for relief as intended
by the Army board’s decision
under the family separation
allowance, the government’s
lawyers said.
But to do that, DFAS would
need to know where family
members were during the
reservists’ mobilization, which
the Army board did not address.
The reservists countered that
the government’s argument
conflated rules that apply to
active-duty personnel with
those for reservists.
While active-duty soldiers are
sent on permanent duty station
assignments with household
goods moves, reservists
are generally mobilized on
temporary assignments that
don’t allow for the relocation of
property and family members.
Judge Armando Bonilla, in
his Friday ruling, appeared
to concur with the plaintiff’s
argument, noting that a second
housing allowance can be
granted when dependent
relocation isn’t authorized
at government expense and
when the Army can’t provide
assigned government quarters.
Nonetheless, the judge said the
Army Board of Corrections
is still the venue to resolve
the matter. Bonilla gave the
board 180 days to complete its
review.